Custom Items

SimplePay provides a number of regular and once-off system items, and we strongly advise you to use these wherever possible as they often have special tax treatment and/or reporting requirements.

However, if you do need to create a custom item, you can do so by going to Settings > Custom Items > Add, where you will have two options for creating new items:

• A completely new item, customised to your specific needs; or
• An item that functions the same way as a specific system item but with a custom name.

Completely New Custom Items

Once you have clicked Add, select the type of item you’d like to create. Then, give it a Name and select an Input Type.

Note

To ensure clarity and avoid any potential confusion in the viewing of payslips or generated reports, it is crucial to choose names that are unique. Also see this note.

Custom Item Type

The first step in creating a new custom item is to select the relevant item type:

• Income – remuneration for services rendered, in addition to salaries
• Deduction – amounts deducted from employees’ pay
• Allowance – payments made that are required for employees to do their job; note that all custom allowances will be taxable
• Benefit – taxable extra goods and services provided by the employer
• Employer Contribution – contributions that are not taxable as fringe benefits; not common
• Reimbursement – to reimburse employees for business expenses incurred; note that all reimbursements are non-taxable but that documentary proof might be required

Note

Reimbursements on SimplePay are MPF and ORSO exempt (in other words, they are not included in the relevant income for MPF and ORSO calculations).

Input Type

Once you’ve named your item, you must select an Input Type, which tells the system how the item will be added to and used on payslips. The following options are available, but not all apply to every item type:

• "Fixed amount" – regular item, which will always have the same amount, irrespective of period or employee
• "Enter Amount Per Employee" – regular item, which will be different for each employee
• "Different on every payslip" – regular item, which will be different for each employee for each period; the amount will be entered under Payslip Inputs each month
• "Once-off for specified payslips" – once-off item
• "Hourly rate * factor * hours" – regular item, which will calculate an amount based on the hourly rate calculated by SimplePay, the factor entered here and the hours entered each month under Payslip Inputs
• "Custom rate * quantity" – regular item, which will calculate the amount based on the rate entered here and the quantity entered under Payslip Inputs
• "% of income" – regular item, which calculates the amount based on the percentage entered here and the relevant employee’s income for the period
• "Formula" – allows you to create custom formulas, similar to Excel. More information about creating formulas is available here.
• "Monthly (for non-monthly employees)" – regular item, which will be taken into account once a month (on the first payslip) for weekly, fortnightly and twice a month employees

In addition to a Name and Input Type, certain items may have some of the following inputs:

• A checkbox Exclude from Average Daily Wage? to mark items which should not be included in the Average Daily Wage calculation.
• A checkbox MPF Exempt? to mark items which should be excluded from the relevant income when MPF is calculated.
• A checkbox ORSO Exempt? to mark items which should be excluded from the relevant income when ORSO is calculated.
• A drop-down menu to select the IR56B Category.

There are further inputs for custom items with the Input Type of “Hourly rate * factor * hours” or “Custom rate * quantity”.

Rate factor

If you select the Input Type “Hourly rate * factor * hours”, you will be required to enter the Rate factor. This is the factor by which the Hourly Rate under Basic Salary must be adjusted for the custom item's calculation. Please see the example below:

Let's assume the following:

• Your employee is paid $50 an hour.
• You set up a custom income item with "1.5" as the Rate factor.
• Hours worked factor is "1" (more information below).
• You enter 10 hours worked on the payslip.

The system will calculate the hourly rate as 50 x 1.5 = 75, and then multiply that by the hours worked (75 × (10 × 1) = 750). Therefore, the custom income item will show $750 on the payslip.

Note

We use the Rate factor to adjust the rate – rather than changing the Hourly Rate under Basic Salary – because the Hourly Rate will be used in other calculations, too. The Hourly Rate under Basic Salary should always remain the employee's standard hourly rate.

Hours worked factor

If you create custom income and allowance items and select the Input Type as “Hourly rate * factor * hours” or “Custom rate * quantity”, you can also enter the Hours worked factor.

As indicated on the screen, it should be entered as 1 for most cases. This input basically tells the system how many hours the quantity entered represents. This would be especially relevant if leave accrual is based on the number of hours worked.

• For example, if you set up a custom item to record Sunday hours, you’d enter 1 as the Hours worked factor. The system will then see anything input for that item as hours. Therefore, if you entered 7 as the payslip input for this custom item, that would count as 7 x 1 = 7 hours worked for leave accrual purposes.
• However, if the custom item is being used to pay employees a daily rate, for example, the Hours worked factor should equal the number of hours the employee works in a day, e.g. 8. If they entered 3 (days) as the payslip input for this custom item, the system would add 3 x 8 = 24 hours to their hours worked for leave accrual purposes.
• Some items should have 0 as the Hours worked factor. An example would be a Night Shift Allowance, where the employees are already paid for those hours worked as part of their normal hours. In other words, having the Hours worked factor as 0 would prevent these hours from being double-counted for leave accrual purposes.

More information about leave accrual based on hours worked can be found in the following article:

• Company-Wide Leave Settings

Custom rate

If you select “Custom rate * quantity” as the Input Type, you will be required to enter the Custom rate. This is the hourly rate at which this specific item should be calculated, and it is independent from the Hourly Rate under Basic Salary.

If you would like a Custom rate per employee, you can tick the Different rate for every employee box. This will prompt you to enter the Custom rate when adding the custom item to a payslip.

Additional Inputs

Link to beneficiary?

If your custom item is set up as a deduction, benefit or employer contribution item, you can link the custom item to beneficiaries. By doing this, any amounts for this custom item that appear on payslips will be included in the Beneficiaries report after creating a pay run. If you’ve set up custom beneficiaries, you can specify that this custom item has a beneficiary by clicking Link to beneficiary?. You’ll then need to select the Beneficiary type:

• "Fixed" should be selected if there is only one beneficiary for this custom item for all employees. You will then need to select the beneficiary from the dropdown list.
• "Different on every employee" should be selected if different employees have different beneficiaries for this custom item. If you select this option, the beneficiary will need to be specified when adding the custom item to the employee’s payslip.

For more information on beneficiaries, refer to the following article:

• Beneficiaries

Enable Pro-Rata

When selecting “Fixed Amount” or “Enter Amount Per Employee” as the Input Type for Income, Allowance or Deduction custom items, the Enable Pro-Rata checkbox appears. Checking this box means that this custom item will be pro-rated on payslips where an employee did not work a full pay period, e.g. the employee was appointed or terminated during the pay period.

More information on pro-rata calculations can be found in the following article:

• How does the pro-rata calculation work?

Exclude from Accounting

When you are setting up a custom benefit item, the Exclude from Accounting checkbox appears. Checking this box means this custom item will not show in any accounting integration or accounting reports.

Custom Items based on System Items

This option allows you to leverage the functionality of an existing item and/or require its reporting rules while also having multiple, uniquely named options.

On the Custom Items screen mentioned above, click on create a copy of an existing system item.

You can then give it a unique custom Name, and select the System Item to Copy. The following system items can be cloned currently:

• Commission
• Employer Loans
• Savings

Once you’ve created the item, you have the option to Customise payslip labels – it will default to "Item Cloned (Custom Name)", e.g. Commission (Custom Commission Name).

You can then click Save, and simply add it to your payslips in the same way you’d add the default system item.

Managing Custom Items

You are able to delete a custom item in the event it was created in error or will no longer be in use. To do so, select the custom item, and click Delete at the bottom of the page.

Deleted custom items can also be reactivated if required. Navigate to Settings > Custom Items, and click on Inactive. Select the custom item, and click Activate.

Note

You cannot reactivate a custom item if it has the same name as a currently active item. You would need to rename either item in order to reactivate.

Custom Item Names

Irrespective of which of the above methods you’re using, your item will need a Name. It is important to choose names that are unique and distinctive.

Tip

We recommend that you make the name as generic as possible so that it can be used for all employees. For example, “Telephone Allowance” is a better name than “John’s Telephone Allowance – November 2016”. This allows you to keep your custom items list short and your payroll simple.